By Scott M. Flynn, Owner of Flynner Homes & Renovations

Scott is a Certified Green Professional with the National Association of Home Builders and a Registered Master Builder with the Idaho Building Contractors Association.

Want to know how to build your next home to meet the highest performance standards in the country, to live in a healthy home, save money and have guaranteed results? Then keep reading!

Certified green homes use a holistic approach to the construction process, which incorporates environmental considerations into every phase of the building procedure. This means during the design, construction, and operation of a home that all the following are taken into account: energy and water efficiency, lot development, resource efficient building design and materials, indoor environmental air quality and homeowner maintenance.

To truly have a green home it must be constructed under a certified national or local green building program. Certified green programs require all green homes be inspected and certified by a credited third-party green verifier to ensure accurate results. There are several green home programs throughout the country with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), National Green Building Standards and the United States Green Building Councils (USGBC), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) programs being the most recognized. Both green programs are based on a points system; the more points, the greener the home. Most importantly, there are a minimum number of points required to assure that all aspects of green building are addressed and that the balanced, “whole systems” approach to green building is satisfied. Regardless of which green program is chosen by the homeowner or the builder, they both generally give the end user the same high performance results as promised.

Flynner Homes & Renovations has chosen to certify all of our homes under the NAHB program. The NAHB program utilizes a third-party verification process that guarantees the homeowner receives exactly what was promised – a healthy, environmentally responsible and more economical home! As an extra bonus every certified NAHB green home also receives an ENERGY STAR certification.

NAHB’s program incorporates 6 areas of environmental concern into each home, know as Green Building Categories. Under these 6 categories are a variety of distinct line items that a builder and homeowner can select from when designing a green home. The 6 Green Building Categories are:

1. Lot Design, Preparation, and Development – Resource-efficient design and development practices help reduce the environmental impacts and improve the energy performance of the home.
2. Resource Efficiency – Creating resource-efficient designs and using resource-efficient materials can maximize function while optimizing the use of natural resources. This includes reused, recycled and renewable materials.
3. Energy Efficiency - This is a “whole systems” approach, which incorporates, HVAC systems, foundations, insulation, windows, appliances, duct sealing, tankless water heaters and much, much more.
4. Water Efficiency – Green homes focus on water conservation both indoors and out by using such items as duel-flush toilets, ENERGY STAR appliances and moisture sensing sprinkler systems.
5. Indoor Environmental Quality – Green homes reduce the amount of indoor toxins by eliminating the materials and sources that emit harmful vaporous contaminants.
6. Operation Maintenance and Homeowner Education – Improper or inadequate maintenance can defeat the builder’s best efforts to create a resource efficient home, therefore time is taken to educate the homeowner about proper operation of their new systems.

Green building is much more than just reducing a home’s energy consumption. It is also about the financial, healthful and peace-of-mind benefits. Here is a list of the most common benefits of green certified homes:

• Protects homeowners from drastically changing building codes
• A guaranteed more durable, comfortable, healthier and efficient home
• Significantly lower utility, maintenance, and operating costs
• Superior performance, as promised
• Reduced environmental impact
• Combats eve- increasing energy costs
• Higher resale value
• Increased homeowner satisfaction
• Mortgage incentives, tax credits and decreased insurance premiums.

The overall goal of building green is to reduce the homes carbon impact on both the environment and the homeowner, and save money in the process. The NAHB program has 4-tiers of greenness: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Emerald. As a basis, a Bronze certified green home under the NAHB program has about a 2% up-charge cost. Typically any additional costs to build to a Bronze level are negated by the lower monthly utility, maintenance and operating costs of constructing a home in this fashion. The cost to achieve the Silver, Gold and Emerald levels is all based on the extent of the homeowner’s creativity and innovation criteria.